


swims into sight, and lights all space

by Hinterlands



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Scars, cass has wandering hands, saya is a little shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 05:49:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7422325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinterlands/pseuds/Hinterlands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adaar's skin is in tatters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	swims into sight, and lights all space

Adaar’s skin is in tatters.

Cassandra lays tangled in the sheets beside her, nightly, slick with sweat, breaths coming short and stuttery, a splotchy flush spread down to the jut of her hips, and traces the lines of old scars, some crooked, some puckered, rippling pale across silvered skin. The motions are absent, almost ritualistic, though there’s more concern than reverence in the crimp of her fingers as she splays them across the flat plane of Adaar’s belly, old jagged slash-marks rigid and warm beneath her palm.

(She poses no questions, and Adaar says nothing in return, merely keeps her eyes trained upon the high, vaulted ceiling, counting the spaces between heartbeats, one arm folded behind her head, expression inscrutable.)

Tonight, however, Cassandra lays light fingertips against a creased circle of tooth-marks marring her thigh—individual punctures punched deep into a hide as resilient as drake-skin, some empathetic ghost-hurt radiating up Cassandra’s leg as she looks upon them—and asks, very softly, “Where did these come from?”

Adaar starts, slightly, as if surprised to hear her speak, shifting up on her elbows to peer down at the old wound she’s indicating, mouth quirked  slightly. “That? Farmer set his dogs on me when I was…mmm, dunno. Thirteen or so. Didn’t like me skulkin’ about too close to his land, I imagine. Hurt like nothin' else, but they healed up all right.”

The slightest of frowns creases Cassandra’s lips, fingers curling against Adaar’s still-sticky thigh. The vashoth chuckles to herself, the sound deep and throaty. “Tried to climb a tree, and I almost managed it, but those suckers could _jump_! One of ‘em got me right there, tore right through my breeches. Had to kick it in the face three times before it’d let me go. They were making this god-awful sound, too, like…”

The vashoth pauses, here, points her nose towards the ceiling, and makes a sound that seems to be the barest approximation of a hound-dog’s baying, an ungodly, bass _aauuuuh_ that seems to rattle between her ribs. Cassandra smacks her thigh, gently, playfully, eliciting a whole-body shudder from the other woman, the slightest of smiles still playing at the corner of her mouth. “Enough. You will wake all of Skyhold with that racket.”

Her fingers begin to trend upwards, tracing the outer curve of Adaar’s thigh, skirting the swell of her hip, until they come to rest upon a mottled patch of scar tissue sitting low on the plane of her belly. “And this one?”

“Feeling a little inquisitive, are we?” No mockery in Adaar’s tone, though Cassandra tenses slightly regardless, instinctively defensive. “Is that a problem?”

“Not at all.” The vashoth raises a hand to smooth Cassandra’s hair back. “Just wondering where this is coming from, that’s all.”

“It…has occurred to me that I know very little about your life prior to the Inquisition.” Cassandra’s fingers curl inward, towards her palm, the tiniest of frowns playing at her lips.

“That’s probably for good reason,” Adaar replies with a snort, waving a nonchalant hand. “It’s standard fare, really. Make a guess about me that you’d make about any other mercenary and you’ll probably at least be half-right.” A brief lapse into silence before the vashoth shifts her hips, shoulders rising in the barest semblance of a shrug. “But that one’s from candlewax.”

“Candlewax?”

“Whatever story you’re making up around that word in your head right now is probably more interesting than the real account, I assure you.”

“Ugh.” Cassandra lets her head fall to rest against Adaar’s belly briefly. “Must you always be so _evasive_?”

“Mm. An element of mystery makes things much more fun, I’ve found.” The vashoth glances down at her, cracking a lopsided smile, the gesture slow and genuine, the force of it wrinkling her nose and disrupting the smattering of coal-black freckles scattered across the bridge of it, crinkling the corners of her eyes.

(Not for the first time, Cassandra is reminded of the ease with which Adaar could steal into one’s heart, cat-footed, contort herself to find space within it, shake out the dusty chambers of it, one by one by one.)

She finds her hands sliding up Adaar’s body, then, touching upon the slits and punctures and trenches lining her skin at random, questioningly; Adaar, settling into the rhythm of the thing, answers the unspoken _and this_ tersely, her voice soft, syllables cracking between her teeth; _bandits_ for the crooked, twin incisions in her right side, _badly-aimed crossbow_ for the soverign-sized, puckered hole just above her clavicle, and, cryptically, _laundry_ for the badly-knitted rent in her right shoulder, resembling the mark of an embedded blade. Cassandra arches a brow at that, and Adaar merely grins her knife-sharp grin, and says no more.

(Cassandra fingers the stretchmarks spreading upwards from her breasts, and the vashoth arches her back, gives a breathy hum of approval, eyes gleaming in the dimness of the room. _Growing pains,_ she murmurs, hands  biting into the corners of the Seeker’s hips, _long years past_ , and Cassandra laughs despite herself, the sound rich and husky, pressing her lips to the silvery streaks of them. _Well worth it,_ she replies, breath hot against Adaar’s skin, before her mouth trends upward, ghosting over the purpled bruises marring Adaar’s throat; these, she knows, are only temporary contributions, but they are hers, all the same.)

Through it all, Adaar is remarkably permissive, sprawled out like some great, dozy cat as Cassandra’s hands canvas her body, not hunting, but roving, ghosting the edges of her nails along the pitted, rigid remnants of some story or another, coaxing the softest of pleased rumbles from the cavity of the vashoth’s chest. One hand laced in the Seeker’s hair, fingers tightening and relaxing as calloused palms rasp against the wall of her abdomen, the knobs of her vertebrae. Eventually, Cassandra reaches up to curl her fingers over the ridge of Adaar’s shoulder, feeling thin, raised lines beneath her palm like claw-marks, barely-healed.

(A raised brow, eyes trained on Adaar’s face as the vashoth shifts up onto an elbow, runs an absent thumb along the puckered line of the scar adorning the Seeker’s cheek, eyes soft.)

_“You,”_ she says, impossibly gentle, and her arm shifts forward, pulling the Seeker in for a silken kiss; Cassandra closes her eyes after a moment, head tilted slightly, and the scabby lines of the scratches beneath her palm burn like brands.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since I wrote something slow and soft, and even longer since I wrote my favorite Adaar in any capacity; hope you enjoyed!
> 
> (Title taken from Sappho's "The Moon.")


End file.
